Think of a waterfall, and you might see why cell-signaling pathways are important to cancer research. As water cascades, it impacts everything downstream. And everything upstream affects the waterfall.

Scientists at the University of Copenhagen have captured thousands of progenitor cells of the pancreas on video as they made decisions to divide and expand the organ or to specialize into the endocrine cells that regulate ...

Blood sugar

Blood sugar concentration, or glucose level, refers to the amount of glucose present in the blood of a human or animal. Normally, in mammals the blood glucose level is maintained at a reference range between about 3.6 and 5.8 mM (mmol/l). It is tightly regulated as a part of metabolic homeostasis.

Mean normal blood glucose levels in humans are about 90 mg/100ml, equivalent to 5mM (mmol/l) (since the molecular weight of glucose, C6H12O6, is about 180 g/mol). The total amount of glucose normally in circulating human blood is therefore about 3.3 to 7g (assuming an ordinary adult blood volume of 5 litres, plausible for an average adult male). Glucose levels rise after meals for an hour or two by a few grams and are usually lowest in the morning, before the first meal of the day. Transported via the bloodstream from the intestines or liver to body cells, Glucose is the primary source of energy for body's cells, fats and oils (ie, lipids) being primarily a compact energy store.

Failure to maintain blood glucose in the normal range leads to conditions of persistently high (hyperglycemia) or low (hypoglycemia) blood sugar. Diabetes mellitus, characterized by persistent hyperglycemia from any of several causes, is the most prominent disease related to failure of blood sugar regulation.